Christmas 2012: Creative Offerings and an Amazing Gift

David attempting to raid the Christmas cookie jar.  The higher we put it, the more precarious his attempts became.



Usually I can write this blog in a way that focuses more on importance rather than chronology.  This week, however, amazing and unusual events came as such an onslaught that I am hard pressed to know where to begin. 

This was the last week of Advent and the kids were in school Monday through Friday.  It was a bit of a challenge at work as we limped toward the end of the year on borrowed computers.  But we did manage to get last minute emails written about planning for next year’s programming.  

Things started to get interesting fairly early as visitors and guests started to arrive as early as Tuesday.  Teri-Lynn our SALTer at the Hope School was down all week and it was interesting to talk to her about how teaching was going.  She told us about the rewards and challenges (sense of isolation being high on the list.)  She also talked about different cultural perceptions of teaching.  I was fascinated to hear how some of her colleagues advised her that-- “The teacher should always be the last to arrive in the class and the first to leave.”  It is so interesting how this is exactly the opposite of what we are taught. 

The perception here is that the teacher is the most important person in the classroom and is accorded a place of very high respect. In our culture education is focused on the student with the teacher playing more of a facilitator role.  The Hope School would like to be more of a child-centered-learning school, but it is clear from the perception of some of the teachers that they have a ways to go.

Teri-Lynn was down several days before the arrival of her parents who came on Thursday afternoon.  Teri-Lynn surprised them at the airport as they were not expecting her to be down in Buja on that day.  They spent the night at our house and then Teri-Lynn took them on a tour of her home upcountry.  They rented a car and driver on my recommendation to help them get around.

Things did not go exactly according to plan as she had planned with her cook to have an elaborate Christmas dinner planned while they were up there to welcome them.  When they arrived, the cook was completely AWOL and never showed up the whole 3 days they were there. 

Unfortunately the trip continued to get worse when they returned Sunday in a rain storm and the driver, who was speeding drove off the road into a ditch on the mountain side of the escarpment they were descending.  They were quite livid about his recklessness and after they were pushed out her dad took the wheel and drove home. 

There were several very tense minutes when she was trying to call us on her cell phone to tell us what was happening.  The site of the accident had terrible reception and the phone kept cutting out everytime she tried to tell us what had happened and how they were.  We finally got the story and just when I was preparing to get in my car and rescue them we got a message that some folks in the vicinity and hoisted them out of the ditch and they were on their way down.

They arrived just in time for our Christmas party on Sunday afternoon, but I will come back to that in a minute.

Yolanda, Melody, Jennifer, and Michael Sharp all
passed through Bujumbura this weekend.

Friday was a fairly busy day with expected and unexpected guests.  Melody and Yolanda arrived in town, and after school we offered to take Janet Miller’s 4 kids home as they had an unexpectedly long graduation to attend at the University.  (They are an American family with 4 kids (husband and wife are both physicians) who are serving at a clinic run by the Free Methodist Church and teaching at Hope Africa University.) 

I taught ballet that day and spent some extra time rehearsing a piece for our Christmas Party.

Saturday was a big day of preparation.  After exercise Oren and I set to work on a fantastic gingerbread house.  He was to be the architect and used his magnet blocks to build a church with a high-peeked roof, a bell tower and a smaller gabled roof.  Once he built it with magnet blocks, Rebecca made dough and I laid out pieces on the dough we rolled out and set in cookie sheets.  It took 3 trays but we baked all the pieces.  We learned an excellent gluing technique using  melted sugar which we dipped the edges of pieces in.  It hardened like epoxy, very quickly.  I also used a cheese grater as sand paper so we had very square pieces.  I also made the royal icing to stick the candy into on the roofs.  (powdered sugar and egg white.) 

Once it was completely built and stuck together, Oren and David decorated it.  It really looked quite fabulous, and was the centerpiece at our Christmas party.

Sunday was the actual day of our Christmas party.  (December 23^rd)  We had been planning this for a while and were calling it a Christmas Dance and Offering of the Arts.  People were asked to bring a song, dance, piece of visual art, or some specialty food or tradition from their culture to share. 

We had a very large group as usual and after most had arrived we had a time of sharing.  Rebecca had organized a group of us to sing some acapella Christmas carols, one of our friends, a teacher at the Ecole Belge performed a flute solo.  We had several families show off some of their specialty foods, Oren showed his gingerbread church, (which every kid ooohed and aaahed and said how beautiful it was and asked if they could eat it immediately).

There was some handicraft and toward the end I performed a short dance I had created for Christmas.  I will try to mount it on the bottom of the blog.

We ended the offering of the arts with a sing-along to the Hallelujah chorus.  (We did print out sheet music.)

After that we went right into the dancing and did some old favorites including Cotton-Eyed Joe and the Virginia Reel.  What really impressed me was the number of kids this time who joined in.  We had several squares of kids in one dance, and Oren was my partner in the Virginia Reel, which he really loved.

From MCC, Jennifer, Yolanda and Melody were all in town.  Michael Sharp had also been there the day before and they had gone out together, although by Sunday he was on his way to Kampala with friends for a vacation.

It was a really fun party and we ended it with a potluck.  Since we began about 3pm everyone was gone by 8 except for a few who stayed around and gave us a hand cleaning up.  We did end by singing a couple Christmas carols and Silent Night in the language of everyone represented there.  It was great to share this event with our friends here.  Rebecca and I even decided that we will try to do three of these events per year with the offering of the arts as part of it from now on.

Monday was the first day the kids had off so we were not really able to do any work.  I did do a bit of Christmas shopping and we wrapped some presents for each other and others we were going to give.  Melody, Yolanda and Jennifer was around as well.  Rebecca did practice the piano some for the evening event we planned to attend.

We were very excited to be going to a Christmas Eve service at Joel and Janet Miller’s house.  Oren and David really like their 4 kids and were happy to see them twice in 3 days. 

Despite the loss of two computers, the returns of the Holiday Season had been happy indeed and we were looking forward to sharing this evening with friends in a Lessons and Carols Service.

What I was not expecting to receive was a call, on the way to the service, from a friend who is a missionary who works with street kids, calling to tell me that someone in the thieves network had contacted him with a White Macbook to sell.  (Apparently they found it fairly useless without the powercord.)  He told me to come out and meet him immediately.  It was a bit awkward as I had to borrow Jennifer’s car but the place he was parked was enroute to the party.  I met him and was able to buy back my macbook from him after he bought it off a thief. 

 I could not believe I had gotten one back, although there had been some people praying for just this, that we would recover at least one by Christmas. 

I walked triumphantly into the Miller’s house brandishing the computer.   We had a lovely Lessons and Carols service with Rebecca playing the keyboard competently for the songs we sung and some very creative dramatic staging and readings for the service.  We ended by singing Silent Night by candlelight.

We returned home and the kids fell asleep in the car on the way home.  I did some inspection of the computer and found it was working well and really had not been used very much at all (because the battery died).

We did Skype our families to tell them the good news.  At this time we are still holding out some hope that the other will be returned as well, particularly since it is password locked and may not be that useable either.

The kids were up early on Tuesday for Christmas. We had a very modest Christmas this year since we did not have visitors from the States.  The featured toys were two wooden tow trucks that we got at the Marche de Noel the week prior.  

As an aside I would add that they will probably receive a few more gifts in the mail.  A parcel with their Chocolate filled Advent calendars still has not arrived.  So they will be able to enjoy that in February probably.  In the same vein, we did get a parcel for our SALTer Janelle on the 22^nd.  Just in time for Christmas.  Unfortunately it was not for the Janelle who is a SALTer this year, but Janelle Tupper who was our SALTer last year.  Her Grandmother sent it to her in November of 2011 and it just got to Burundi on Dec 22, 2012!   We told Janelle about it and she said to go ahead and open it as it might be food that would not be good anyway.  (She is currently back in Washington DC).

We did open it and it would definitely qualify as one of the best gifts for naughty children, probably even better than coal or switches.  Apparently cookie dough packed in a tin had exploded enroute making the address hard to read.  You can imagine how rancid that was. It was on everything including some dried fruit, other cookies, mixed nuts (which tasted OK) and some fiber bars.  The look and smell in the box were really quite dreadful.  I think it must set some kind of record for belatedness though.

The kids had fun with them as well as with a lego kit and a new Magic Schoolbus Video.  We spent the morning playing games with the kids and watching the new videos.

Sadly Oren started spiking a fever by mid-morning and it was obvious he was coming down with a virus.  Nonetheless, we did go to a final Christmas dinner at the Kings Conference Center hosted by Simon Guillebaud.  Many of the same folks were there who had been at the two previous parties so it was one more chance for all of our kids to play together.  Actually, after the delicious buffet meal we had the kids watch a movie while the adults set up several games of ‘speed scrabble.’  (or bananagrams.)

We went back home and by mid afternoon Oren’s fever was up again.  We did a malaria test (negative) that evening and gave him more aspirin.  Before bed we began packing for our trip the next day.  We are going with Tim and Jeanette Van Aarde to Uganda for a week vacation at Lake Bunyoni.

This final post of 2012 is being sent from Kigali where we have stopped for the night enroute to Uganda.  More in the New Year!

Bonus video, click here for a link to a video of the dance I did.

Another Goodbye and a Very Wet Fete

Hippos I saw driving back from my meeting in Cyangugu.  This was in Bujumbura near Ubuntu restaurant.

I think enough time has elapsed to leave everyone hanging after the announcement last week of a computer theft.  Unfortunately no news is not really good news.  We hold out hope that our connections to the thieves network here will disseminate information about a large reward to the right people.  Since neither computer has a cord and Macs are not supported in any way in Burundi, we are hoping the thieves will see the good sense in trying to sell them back to us.  I have put out a notice on a Bujumbura Professionals website to be on the lookout for someone trying to fence 2 Macbooks.

So we wait and hope, but we have not really slowed down.  I am happy to see that in comparison to Monday, the rest of the week seemed pretty good.  We received a lot of sympathy from friends and even many acquaintances who have heard through the grapevine. 

We were able to borrow a small netbook so we are able to work together with 2 computers and have been able to keep up with work and emails.  I mentioned that I had delayed a trip to Rwanda I was supposed to go on Monday, but did go on Tuesday.  Actually it was not as far as Kigali as I was helping convene a meeting between MCC Rwanda and MCC DRC partners on the border between the two countries near Bukavu.  The town was called Cyangugu and it is about a 3 hour drive from Bujumbura.

I left after school on Tuesday and got to the guest house by 5 pm  (This is Peace Guesthouse in Cyangugu run by the Anglicans, excellent!).   I only had a bit of trouble crossing the border because I realized my car insurance had expired the day before.  The Rwanda police harassed me but amazingly let me go on if I promised to buy some temporary insurance in the next town.  (I did promise but never got the insurance.) 

I was the first to arrive and enjoyed an hour of sitting on the balcony of the restaurant overlooking Lake Kivu.  Our Rwanda partners arrived about 8pm.  We had dinner and went to bed.  The plan was to meet the Congo partners the next morning when they crossed the border and take them to the guest house when they arrived.   Michael Sharp and 3 members of a partner organization of MCC came over.  We met for about 4 hours and discussed a refugee repatriation project being implemented in DRC that needed some follow-up in Rwanda.  There was interest in seeing whether our partners could work in collaboration with each other across this border, especially with the tension between Rwanda and DRC.  There did seem to be a sincere interest in mutual collaboration so we will see if this project will take off in the next year.

 I will say briefly that the gist of the project is to use testimonials from returnees in Rwanda to entice ex-combatants from the FDLR to lay down their weapons voluntarily and agree to be repatriated.  (If not the combatants themselves, their families and relatives that have been in forest with them.)

I headed back to Bujumbura right after lunch on Wednesday and was back home in 24 hours.  It was a short trip but quite valuable.  I was glad it did not require me to be away all week.  I met Rebecca at soccer where I found she and Jeanette practicing guitar near the soccer field and David and Isabel playing together.  Isabel, (Tim and Jeanette’s daughter) is David’s best friend these days.

Getting back into the swimming routine Thursday morning was great and helped take my mind off the loss of the computers.

 

Rebecca was a home with the kids and is contributing a bit about her activities this week:

This is Rebecca chiming in with a few mundane details to dispel the murky mood of post-theft reality. I don't think we've mentioned anything in this blog about David, our prolific artist. The poor second child never gets much notice when he starts doing all the things that were so captivating in the first child. Well, when David started his second year of preschool, he could hardly even color in a coloring book. But at this point in his school career, drawing is his favorite thing. When he gets to school, he ignores all the other interesting activities on other tables, laid out by his teacher. He gives me a kiss and a hug and then gets to work coloring. He happily produces 6 to 8 well-colored-in Christmas pictures a day in school. He can draw freehand a perfectly recognizable, very kindly Saint Nicolas. And when he gets home, he empties out the drawer of scrap paper and goes to work again. There is always a 10 square foot area in the corner of the living room littered with his drawings: a christmas tree and a dinosaur, a rabbit, 5 guinea pigs, a dinosaur peeing on St Nicolas. He is getting pretty good with the scissors, too. I won't bore you with my grumbling about cleaning up those creative efforts. ;-)

And Oren's news...last week he and I were having an interesting conversation. He finally told me that he loved school! I asked, what changed? And he said, well, I probably just got better at school. I'm good at it now. I love school. Take me to school right now! He claimed to love school more than karate or soccer. But he actually seems pretty motivated about those as well. Last week, there were competitions and tests in karate. And Oren actually passed, getting his third yellow stripe. What's more, he cared about it. He came home saying, “Mommy, I got my third yellow stripe. And you know what comes after that? A yellow belt!”

Other unusual news: a yoga friend and I learned that we both enjoy singing early music in small ensembles. At least, we'd enjoyed it when we were younger! After much talk and little action we finally found a bass and soprano to join us. And on Thursday night when the kids were in bed, the four of us got together for some very fun quartet singing. The Christmas carols (“Quem Pastores” and “In dulci jubilo”) sounded lovely right off. We started tackling a few more challenging pieces which will be fun to work on more in the new year. But's it's really a delightful surprise to get to sing with a quartet again, with singers who have a lot of experience.

Finally, me and the kids were able to join friends for some nice baking projects during this past week. Joy Johnson invited us to join her for her family tradition of making gingerbread houses. She has really perfected the method of gluing her gingerbread pieces together with melted sugar—foolproof, even in humidity! She had created enough gingerbread houses for many families to come together and decorate. Different folks brought candy decorations (not easy to find in Burundi!) and we worked under a tent in the yard for a while. The boys were briefly interested – long enough to plaster the roofs with bubblegum and hard candies. The girls pulled off some beautiful designs. The conversation was fun – just good to be together. And on Friday afternoon, friends from our cell group came over to help me make sugar cookies and gingersnaps to bring to our church Christmas celebration on Sunday. Again, it was good to work together on a Christmas-y feeling project.I'll sign off with that...

Paul Again…

The week, as busy as it was seemed to be building up to a grand finale at the weekend.  To begin, Teri-Lynn Jordan, our SALTer who is teaching at the Hope School was down for the weekend.  I did not teach ballet on Friday because the school was using the studio to prepare for the Marche de Noel.  This is the annual Christmas event at the school that serves as a fundraiser as well as a craft bazaar for local merchants who want to offer their wares to Christmas shoppers.  It is usually a lot of fun and features tons of food, the requisite bouncy castle, and many interesting shopping opportunities.  It is outdoors however and thus risks being negatively affected by rain.

 On Saturday we had one of those rare ‘all day rain’ kind of days.  It was cold and clammy and felt more like London than Bujumbura.  We did brave the elements about 3pm to participate in the Marche, but it was very wet.  Rebecca had agreed to work at a booth for the Mom’s prayer group so we stayed around about 2 hours.  David took advantage of the mud puddles to get himself completely filthy and all the kids seemed to enjoy the bouncy castle even in the rain.

We did do some Christmas shopping while we were there, but it was definitely a bit of a let down because of weather.  Nonetheless, I did see just about every ex-patriate I know in the country at this event.  Definitely a place to be seen.

It is hard to believe this was to be topped on Sunday, but this was a huge day for us.  It began with a youth and kids service at church.  Sort of like a Christmas pageant although it was a week early because many will be on vacation next week.  It was a huge event where the kids ran much of the service and it was organized for them.  The chairs were put in a large circle with mats laid on the floor in the center of the room.  There were many children’s songs led by Andy Wisdom, the older son of a missionary family who is here working at the King’s School. 

The service was as full of people as I have ever seen.  We went about 2 and a half hours but it was really awesome.  Afterwards we shared a giant potluck then played some crazy competitive games led by Simon Guillebaud.  The favorite by far was tug-of-war and we played off some National rivalries in a kind of tournament.  We have enough different nations represented at our church to have a mini Olympics or a World Cup.

It was a great morning although Rebecca was so exhausted afterwards she fell into a deep sleep until late afternoon. 

There were things planned for the evening.  One of the sadder events was going over to say goodbye to Saffy, our short term volunteer at the UCEDD (who sponsors the Hope School).  Saffy has been a great addition to our team, but even before she was with MCC we have known her in Bujumbura.  She, like me, had a dance career before going into International Development and she was a regular attendee at my adult ballet class.  She also taught classes here as well.

Saffy at our house with Jennifer and Teri-Lynn (and St. Nicolas)

We went over to Jennifer Price’s flat (which they share) and took about half an hour to say goodbye.  She is returning to the UK from whence she came.  Her next plan is Grad. School at this point.

After saying goodbye to Saffy, our family drove over to some friends of our from Ethiopia.  He works for Catholic Relief Services and they are in our small group.  Since we did not have small group this week they invited us over.  Although we were completely beat we could not resist the offer of a traditional Ethiopian meal.  I love Ethiopian food and this was the best I have had.  Like a restaurant but even better.  They even ended the meal with Ethiopian coffee made in the traditional way.  (They even roast the beans themselves.)

Oren and David amused themselves thoroughly with our friends’ children watching satellite TV which had every channel in the world.  They caught up a few episodes of Sponge Bob among other things.  It was a real treat for them.

Although our weekend completely wore us out, we could not have had a more enjoyable time to end it.  Next Sunday is our big Christmas Dance and Offering of the Arts Party.  If you live in Buja and did not get an invite, send us a note.

 

A Devastating Loss

Oren, David and Mommy at the pool at Club du Lac this weekend.

Too many days without an update and this will not even be a good one.  I am writing in a bit of a raw emotional state this evening because of a devastating event that happened today.  Fortunately is was not a death, but Rebecca and I did lose, in a theft two Mac computers.  They happened to be together in a briefcase which was by my feet in the front seat of the car.  We dropped the kids off at school and in the 5 minutes we were in the building with the car parked just outside the gate, a thief got in and grabbed the briefcase.  Although I am in the habit of locking, there is usually a momentary chaotic blur of children in the street and cars passing can be a distraction.  The scene is quite busy and I am amazed that someone would be so gutsy as to grab something out of a car there under the noses of security guards, chauffeurs, and arriving parents, but they did.  Definitely not a random event, but something well planned and professional.

It is a devastating loss because replacing 2 expensive personal laptops is out of the question.  The fact that Rebecca just returned from Kigali last weekend with one of them freshly repaired with a new hard drive makes it even more painful.  While I do not want to be overly materialistic, I will say we loved to work on these computers, they made our jobs much easier with a quick, easy to search mail program.  We also had many things for the kids, photos, and movies on them.  Fortunately our work is backed up on Dropbox (a cloud program) and we have another hard drive back up in the US, but our back up drive here has failed as well after being mishandled in the process of reinstalling some stuff on the previously broken Mac. 

We spent the day trying to track down the computers.  We have let school officials and the security company they use know.  But we are also getting the word out through a network of informal connections that there is a reward for their return.  I think there is some chance of this because the power cords were not with the computers and those cost over $150 here.  There is also no support for Mac here, so selling them back might prove to be the best option for a thief.  We will see what happens but for now I am feeling very sick, nauseous with a massive headache.  I delayed going up to Kigali this morning which was my plan before this all transpired.

I will go up tomorrow although not to Kigali but to Cyangugu on the border to Bukavu, DRC.  Our partners are going to meet with some MCC DRC partners to discuss some collaboration on a refugee project.  I don’t what will happen, I do sense that with the ongoing rebellion in Eastern DRC in which Rwanda is implicated, there is a lot of tension between Rwandese and Congolese.  I think especially that Rwandese partners have some paranoia that there may be some government repercussions for collaborating in such projects.  Anyway, we will sit together Wednesday and discuss the possibility of this, but I am not entirely optimistic.

Rebecca was in Rwanda last week while I took care of the kids.   She came home after 4 days thoroughly exhausted.  Apparently meetings were challenging and even a bit tense.  Some of this is because we have new personnel that are still finding their niche, and we are working towards some new directions for our program.  I think partners are nervous and jockeying for position hoping to get something good out of the new  work here or at least some assurance that they will not be excluded.  

Backing up a bit, Oren was invited to two Birthday parties this past week.  Zack Guillebaud’s was first and Oren and David were excited to get to go to Musee Vivant, the zoo, for the party.  Zack’s Dad Simon has a reputation for going into the crocodile cages and he did not disappoint on this day.  He got them to jump up and lunge at him several times.  We also arrived in time for feeding time at the snake cages.  Very sadly though, the chimp had died the week before of malaria. 

The kids also played some competitive games for prizes and there was a cake in a play area near the zoo.  I think our kids had a lot of fun.

The second Birthday was on Monday afternoon last week for Sam Miller.  Sam is in Oren’s class and Oren went home with him and several other boys after school.  They stayed until about 4 then David and I went to get him.  The Miller’s have just moved into their new house, the former house of Travis and Astrid.  It is a house that is familiar to Oren and David. 

It was good to be the one staying home all week with the kids.  I enjoyed swimming every day and doing things with the kids.  Among the good habits I have added to my daily routine is walking the dogs.  The kids really like to do this too, although the two dogs are really too big for either of the kids to handle.  Oren is OK  at holding Bella though.  Dance has been going well on Fridays and it continues to be a nice change of pace from the normal routine of the week.

Rebecca got back on Thursday and it was very good to see her after she was gone for 4 days.  As I said she was exhausted when she came home.  We did have a nice relaxing weekend with our morning yoga exercise class followed by a singing rehearsal of some Christmas music. We are preparing a few things for our Christmas folk dance and "offering of the arts" party on the 23^rd of December.  We had about 4 people join us (including 2 service workers) to learn some songs.  Yolanda and Melody were also in town over the weekend.  Yolanda headed out for a short vacation and Melody spent the weekend at our house, returning to Gitega today.

Among the interesting and challenging questions at work has been a request from MCC for those of us in the Great Lakes region to think of an advocacy position regarding Eastern Congo, that can be shared with our constituents. MCC also does to advocacy at the UN and in DC and Ottawa, so there is interest in finding a position for MCC around the issues of the region.  We have been doing a lot of research and inquiry and it is hard to reach a consensus.  The issue has become pressing because of the activity of M-23 rebels and the recent UN report that they are being supported by Rwanda.  (Rwanda denies this.)  There is some question about whether there should be advocacy for economic sanctions against Rwanda to pressure them to abandon their support of this group. 

Feelings in the International community are mixed here; Rwanda is seen as a very positive model of progressive development and low corruption.  Still, like its neighbors, it seems to be taking advantage of the power vacuum in Eastern Congo to exploit resources like gold and coltan.  In talking to our advisors in Rwanda, we have been told that resources are not at the base of the conflict and there is a lot of ethnic tension.  Our advisors are in favor of a regional solution that does not involve US or other nation’s sanctions, but rather theri support in brokering talks.  One thing that is becoming clear to me is just how complex the situation is and how much it resists a simple reductionist explanation.  The role of countries like the US are particularly hard to understand in this as their influence is ambiguous at best.  Although ‘conflict minerals’ do exist in the region, for instance, it is not clear to what extent they are at the root, the cause of the conflict or whether they simple exacerbate the ethnic tension and lawlessness there by making it possible for rebel groups who control the region to have access to some money to continue to propagate their regimes.  I am putting a map created by BBC that shows some of the groups operating in the region.  As can be seen, M-23 is just one of many.  In my opinion it seems like more of a feudal system of fiefdoms that exploit and terrorize peasants to keep them fed and armed in exchange for some protection.

I am not sure I have more to say right now.  I am hoping to have some good news to report in the future about recovering the computers.  Pictures are also a bit sparse because they are harder to get up on the web without our macs.  The other constant that has been relentless the past 2 weeks is rain.  It has rained almost steadily for days now.  Usually rains come hard for part of the day, but that has not been the case recently.  It seems particularly hard when we are going to drop off or pick up the kids from school.  I guess this is why they call it the rainy season.

Despite all, we are doing our best to get into the Holiday spirit.  We have enjoyed celebrating the Sundays in advent and Rebecca and I have been doing a fast during the weekdays of advent, eating only after 5 pm in the evening.  I am feeling a bit depleted these days, but humbled as well.  Looking forward to a nice break between Christmas and New Years.

Creating a Change of Season Amidst Farewells, and Traveling

Oren and David cracking open the Christmas decoration suitcase this past week.

I think this blog has been slowly moving into an 8 day cycle. I don't know if it is because life here seems less novel after 4 and a half years, or if we are just really busy. I think it is the latter as we seem to constantly be on the run. I am trying to get something posted this week so I have at least 4 posts in November. But also because it was a memorable week for several reasons, good and not so good.

On the good side, we did celebrate a belated Thanksgiving this past Saturday with a group of American friends. It was hosted by Courtney and JJ Ivaska at their house. We saw Isaiah and Samantha theere (missionaries based upcountry in Muramviya, Travis and his girls (Astrid has arrived safely in the Netherlands), Joel and Jeanette Miller and their family, as well as Ben and Kristy Carlson and their kids. Since most are together in the Ecole Belge the kids has a wild time running around the house playing games (boys and girls separately). There was also a turkey-making craft for the little kids. It was a very enjoyable afternoon/evening. It was nice to go to something rather than host it for a change as well.

Rebecca made another excellent faux cranberry sauce using japanese plums that was indistinguishable from the real thing.  She also contributed an apple crisp made with green mangoes that was quite convincing as well.

On Sunday, Oren could not wait at all to start decorating the tree. We did say he had to wait until Thanksgiving, so he did at least that, but then they begged us to set up the tree and get down the Christmas trimmings suitcase. I went out and bought some lights (since they only last about a year here) and put them on the tree. Oren and David decorated all the rest of it with many of their home-made decorations from past years. It looks great! I have started playing Christmas music starting with The Messiah (which I also do not allow myself to play until after Thanksgiving.

Although there is no seasonal change to cold weather, decorating the house does give us the sense of a change of season. It is also great to see how excited the kids are about Christmas this year. David is now 4 and is very aware of what this means. He also takes many of his cues from Oren as far as what to be excited about.

Backing up in the week, I mentioned in my last entry that I was upcountry for several days of the previous week for a stategic planning meeting of our partner Help Channel. Getting home was quite a relief although the meeting was very interesting. I arrived back Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed the normal routines of Thursday and Friday. Friday particularly with all the dance classes continues to be a blessing and a challenge.

This week it was Rebecca's turn to go up country while I stayed with the kids. It is honestly hard to say which is more stressful. This week a large road construction project that routed all traffic on the main artery into the city past the front gate of the school has been very stressful, both because of delays and concerns for getting the kids safely into school. Oren also suffered a series a small injuries involving toes and an ankle that caused him to miss soccer this week. Worse, he was the latest person in our family to fall victim to a short but powerful stomach virus that both David and I had the week prior. Oren vomited several times on Tuesday evening. He does not like vomiting and in facts seems so affronted by it that he refuses to do it anywhere that might be convenient to clean up, prefering to hit the bedsheets, mosquito nets, floor, bookcases and any open books, over the bucket that I am holding out in front of him.

Fortunately he was over it by morning and was able to go to school the next day which was good because it was class and school photo day, a bad one to miss. Rebecca came home on Wednesday as well and it was good to be reunited as a family. It was a bit odd not being the one traveling though. Next week will be the same with her going to Rwanda.

Rebecca and Nina

Rebecca's arrival was just on time for us to go to the airport later that day to say good bye to some friends who are leaving Burundi for good.  Jatta is a Finnish woman working for the European Union who was a frequenter of my ballet and yoga class and really was able to connect ex-pat dancers to the class.  Nina also left with her sons Jonah and Milo.  They are returning to Germany after a 3 year stint here with GIZ.  Her husband Bila had left a couple months earlier.  They were good friends of ours and both of the kids were in David and Oren's classes.  We saw them off at the airport that night and were sad to hear that both Jonah and Milo had the vomiting virus that evening as they were getting on the plane.  I assume they are back in Germany resting by now.

I am going to turn the blog over to her now to report on the things she did on her 3 day trip to Gitega and Burasira...

Rebecca chiming in here: I’ve been struggling lately to keep all the balls in the air, between work, home, kids, Sunday school, and a few special work-related assignments. This week I needed to travel up-country to see some of our volunteers. So my prayer Sunday night with our small group, was that this trip would be both safe and refreshing. I am glad to say that it actually was refreshing to be in the mountains and have some quality time with some team members.

I left on Monday mid-morning, after collecting a number of essential supplies for Teri-Lynn, who lives in a fairly isolated spot and can’t get many things in her market (she needed cooking gas, pasta, oil, rice without stones, carrots, and a couple packages of cookies for moral support). My first stop was in Gitega, where I was delighted to find that I got to share lunch with Saffy, as well as Melody and Yolanda. Their cook does a great job – see the photo with beautifully arranged fresh fruit for dessert. After lunch, Melody and I met with her supervisors at MIPAREC to get a sense of what her first months will look like at work. We toured the current MIPAREC offices and even got to walk through the new office building, still under construction.

I also got to share dinner with Melody and Yolanda in their flat, and we drank many cups of tea while discussing the best ways to become integrated in a partner organization. The best advice: spend lots of time in the beginning getting to know one’s colleagues, greeting people door to door. We also discussed possible research topics Yolanda is considering for her Masters’ work following her MCC term next year. It’s always fascinating to hear about her research and insights – she does a lot more academic reading about the region than anyone I know.

Gitega service workers Yolanda, Melody, Saffy

I spent part of the morning with Yolanda and her supervisor, completing a mid-term performance review. The partner organization, UCPD, has really grown in maturity, having developed a culture of asking questions of themselves. “Why isn’t this working? Who can we ask to find out? What can we do to change things?” I am always impressed with the integrity and honesty with which they do their work, and Yolanda has been a great fit for that assignment.

Melody and I had a quick – and yet again delicious! – Alphonsine-prepared lunch before picking up Beatrice, the education director of UCEDD, Teri-Lynn’s partner organization. I invited Melody to come along on this quick overnight trip to see Teri-Lynn to give her a chance to see a little of rural Burundi and to be able to picture where her nearest colleague is living and working. The dirt road from Gitega wasn’t too bad this time going up, and Beatrice and I had a lot to talk about in terms of the school and about regional politics, given that she’s Congolese and has some opinions about the recent M23 rebel take-over of Goma. When we arrived, Beatrice, Teri-Lynn and I sat down right away to go through her initial work appraisal. She is working very hard and doing a great job of teaching English to both students and teachers. But it is a real challenge to feel integrated into the community, particularly since she lives alone.

When Beatrice left to go back to the school, the three of us took a walk around the seminary property. I especially wanted to pick up some fallen evergreen boughs to decorate for Christmas. It was so lovely to breathe the fresh air and stretch my legs. Back at Teri-Lynn’s place, I was able to help her replace some parts on her gas stove, but failed to get her living room lights to work properly. Hmmm. Low-voltage lighting solutions will be in the next care package…We had a nice dinner together and talked about Teri-Lynn’s plans for some holiday time with her parents at Christmas. And when the time came, I slept like a log!

Teri-Lynn and Melody with teachers at Hope School

We woke up in the morning to find it had been raining softly all night. We went to the Seminary service of morning prayer in French, a discipline I really appreciate when I go up there – in particular the silent time of meditation between the prayers and the Eucharist. I found myself praying hard about the muddy road that lay before me later in the day. Back at Teri-Lynn’s house, there were questions to discuss with her cook and her nightguard—sorting out houseworker issues is hard for Teri-Lynn without a lot of French or Kirundi (I needed Beatrice’s help for the later). And then on up to the school to shake hands with teachers, drop off Teri-Lynn and pick up Beatrice and head out. At first, the road was decent, but then we got stuck in the middle of a long line of empty pickup trucks, heading back to Gitega to pick up more gravel. And suddenly, heading down an incline, I realized our car was sliding just a bit. And going up the next hill, I was pretty horrified to see the three trucks in front of me really fishtailing in the mud. I told Beatrice that now was a good time to start praying if she wanted to (and she obliged me by praying in tongues very quietly). I was trying not to picture the truck in front losing traction and sliding backwards, making a nice MCC sandwich with the truck behind. All my driving skills were called into action during that hour, and it wasn’t very fun. Finally, we made it to the point where we could take a more rural road and leave the trucks behind. I was glad to, even though the road was bumpier and more narrow. In any case, since I’m writing this, you know we made it back to Gitega in one piece.

I dropped off Melody at home and continued on for Bujumbura, but I realized that I was still kind of dizzy from the stressful hours of driving. So I stopped to visit the Foyer de Charité Catholic retreat center in Giheta, a place I had heard of but never seen before. As soon as I pulled off the gravel drive into the compound and stepped out of my car, I was greeted by a sister in an apron with a quiet, radiant face. She asked why I had come, and then she explained the mission of her order – to provide a place of retreat, where all categories of people could meet with the Lord, and be accompanied in their prayers. Clearly she was someone completely available to serve and welcome anyone the Lord would send. She directed me to the chapel and welcomed me to stay as long as I wanted. And when I left the chapel, I was met by another sister, with a similarly glowing presence, who welcomed me into her sitting room. She told me warmly of the healing they had seen, as people had come for five day retreats over the years. This has been the simple, Catholic approach to trauma-healing, I think. Conversation with these women gave me the sensation of honey rolling down the back of my throat—they have a deep joy and peace that I wish was a more present part of my life. But my half hour with them carried me back down the mountain and back home to my family.